Biggest

By millions of miles of successful operation over the Caribbean, around South America and across the Pacific, Pan American Airways proved to itself that "the bigger the airplane is the more efficient it can be made." The P. A. A. began to eye the Atlantic and ran into the toughest competition in its history. Europe's crack lines, Deutsche Lufthansa, Air France and Imperial Airways--all richer than P. A. A. because their Governments directly subsidize them--had plans for the same ocean. But none had over-ocean passenger planes. Three years ago P. A. A. called for ships that would fly the route, pay their way. Last week Seattle's big Boeing Aircraft Co. answered with a monster flying boat.

Biggest airplane yet constructed in the U. S., Boeing's "314" is the first of six Atlantic Clippers for P. A. A. Among its features new to passenger aircraft are: 1) a "flight deck" for the twelve-man crew as big as the total inside area of the biggest U. S. land transport now flying; 2) engines, reached by a catwalk through the wings, behind which an engineer can stand to mend fuel lines, change spark plugs in flight; 3) unlike any other flying boat, once in the water it will remain there and, like a ship, emerge only for repairs in an aircraft drydock; 4) it possesses a full-size flight of stairs. It also has the world's most powerful airplane engines, four 1,500-h.p. twin-row, 14-cyl. Wright-Cyclones, any two of which will keep it aloft. At half power, they will fly the Atlantic Clipper, with 40 passengers plus 7,000 lb. of freight, 3,550 miles from New York to Southampton at 155 m.p.h. Every passenger will have a bed, converted from 77 daytime seats, a place at one of the five tables in the dining room. For newlyweds one of the clipper's 15 rooms has been set aside as a "honeymoon suite." Stripped of its passenger gear, the Clipper can carry 20 fighters, eight tons of armament or bombs--no small advantage in the eyes of the U. S. Government experts who will license it after testing in May.

But engineers last week were busy marking a milestone with the 82,500-lb. Atlantic Clipper, seeing in it more fame from "lasts" than "firsts." It is the last of the "little" airplanes, the last airplane with engines outside, the last of duralumin, maybe the last with gasoline for fuel. P. A. A.'s 225,000-lb. "dream ships" now a-planning and due in three years will be steel, maybe Diesel-motored.

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